


An End of History

by Thistlerose



Series: On the Blind Side of the Heart [6]
Category: Gundam Wing
Genre: Canonical Character Death, Daddy Issues, F/M, Gen, M/M, Masturbation, Missing Scene, POV First Person, Politics
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-06-08
Updated: 2014-06-08
Packaged: 2018-02-03 22:30:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,583
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1758587
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Thistlerose/pseuds/Thistlerose
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Written in 2002.  Separately, Relena, Quatre, and Dorothy confront some of their most troubling memories, and try to figure out what this new era of peace holds for them.</p>
            </blockquote>





	An End of History

**RELENA DARLIAN**

 

This is what I remember:

I'm sitting on my bed looking out the window at the snow. It's been falling since morning and the roofs and eaves of the houses below are piled high with it. In the distance, I can see the grey glimmer of the sea. A church bell is ringing. Rooks or geese, I can't tell which, flap overhead. The briny wind comes to me, tears at the curtains, stings my face, but I don‘t close the window. It is evening, a few days before Christmas. I am five years old.

The door behind me opens and my brother comes in, smelling of cold, outdoor things: dirt and ice and wind and electricity. Some of the younger serving maids are afraid of my brother, but I've never been. He doesn't tease his little sister the way his friends do theirs. But if he is not cruel, neither is he overly affectionate. I don't move as he comes to kneel on the bed beside me.

“Windy night,” he observes after a few moments of silence.

“Is that man still here?”

“General O'Neill? No, he retired to his quarters about half an hour ago.”

“I don't like him.” I don't like the way he looks at me, I want to say, like something on his dinner plate.

“Heh. What's to like?” My brother leans against the windowpane, stretches his long legs out in front of him. “Papa doesn't like him, either. I think everyone will be happy when he's gone. It's a night for the Wild Hunt, isn't it? Look, Relena...”

He's trying to distract me, and he's succeeded. I follow his finger to the bows of the evergreen trees. They weave and undulate in the wind, black against the grey sky.

“Can you see their black horses? Look.”

I stare, squinting, and after a time I do see the leanly muscled bodies prancing and diving across the sky. I am transfixed.

“There are white horses, too. Look at the sea.”

Waves crested with foam rear and plunge against the dark shore.

“What do you suppose they are hunting, Relena?”

“General O'Neill.”

My brother laughs. “That is not the Peacecraft way. We don't hunt our enemies down, although sometimes I think... Never mind. Can you see the riders? They have long, wild hair, and their eyes are like emeralds. They wear the skins of animals and their hunting dogs run at their side...”

This is the first cruel thing I can remember my brother doing, and he's not even aware. He's telling me these things, and telling me my role. But I want to ride with the Hunt. I always have.

* * * *

I have trouble remembering what happened after that. I was only five years old, so it's not so surprising my memory is faulty. I could ask Milliardo, but part of me is afraid of what he might tell me. He saw more of what happened than I did. He understood more.

I don't like thinking about the distant past. I spent so much of my life suppressing those memories, believing myself to be the daughter of Edward and Millicent Darlian. I still think of them as my real parents. I love them, even though, looking back now, they often neglected me and they were not always very warm.  


They tried, but I think they were afraid of what would happen if they gave me what  


I really wanted, which was the knowledge of how to find the Hunt and ride with it.  


Heero was the one who gave me that.

Anyway, something about tonight reminds me of that long ago night. The wind is ferocious; I can hear the trees creaking and shaking, and I'm inside with a thick pane of glass between me and the wind. Snow keeps coming down, heavy and wet. The snowmen that the children made earlier today are obliterated completely.  


All air traffic has been suspended, which means that some of the people who came here to protest Marie Maia's insurrection four days ago, who stayed to help repair the damaged buildings and tend the wounded, are still stuck here. I'm sure they would like to return home to their loved ones. I wish that I had a home to go back to as well.

I've spent the evening holed up in my suite, sitting on the floor, poring through files. I'm so sick of economics. But we need a plan quickly, if L3-X18999 is ever going to be the equal of its sister Colonies, and frankly, most of the men I work with are old fashioned. We need some fresh ideas and we need them NOW.

Well, maybe not _now_. My eyesight is beginning to blur and when I glance at my notes I can barely read my own handwriting.

So, the knock at my door is quite a welcome thing, and I cry out “Come in!” with a bit more enthusiasm than is perhaps appropriate, considering I do not know who it is.

It is Heero. I think I'm as startled to see him as he is to be here, which I know sounds odd, but he really does look as though he stumbled upon my suite accidentally. Which can not be true because he has been here before. He's wearing the black down-filled jacket I got for him; there's snow on his scarf and in his hair, and there are wet patches on his jeans. His skin is white and pinched with cold.

“I went to the communications tower,” he says without preamble.

I gesture frantically at the crackling fire in the fireplace. _Get over there,_ I want to yell, _you look like you're freezing to death_ , but I've found out over the course of the past week that he hates to be fussed over.

He looks up, and the snowflakes on his lashes gleam and melt. He blinks as though he's not used to so much light. But he does come in and goes to stand by the fireplace.

_Sit down_ , I want to say, _take off your jacket, let me get something for you_ , but I can't.

“Duo went with me. I think he still thinks I'm an invalid. We called the spaceport. Zechs and Noin's shuttle hasn't taken off yet, because of the inclement weather. Don't worry about them flying in this.”

I wasn't worried, although I hadn't heard from either of them. I knew their flight to Mars would be delayed. I wasn't thrilled as the delay would give my brother time to reconsider his decision--the decision I'd all but forced upon him--to join the terrformation team on Mars. I'd taken to heart Heero's suggestion that my brother might be in danger from vengeful citizens of the Earth and I thought that voluntary hard labor would be a convincing demonstration of remorse. Milliardo had not been enthusiastic about the idea, said he'd rather work as a Preventer, but I'd convinced him. Many former OZ soldiers also signed on as Preventers, and I think it would be better for my brother not to be surrounded by reminders of the past he wishes to bury. I think it would help him immeasurably to be able to build something with his own hands, something good. I think it helps somewhat that Noin is going, too. He cares for her, and she is very patient.

“Thank you,” I tell Heero. “That was very kind of you.”

He shrugs. Then, sounding as though he's reading lines or quoting something he heard someone else say, “How are you?”

“Tired!” The word becomes a very deep yawn--so undignified--and I laugh when it's over. After a beat, he smiles slightly, too. “I have so much to go over!” I moan, waving my hand at the files on the floor. “It's so frustrating. I have a few ideas, but I'm not sure how well the other leaders will take them. Sometimes I wish I could fire the lot of them and replace them with people my age.” I think about that for a moment, then shake my head sadly. “But...no. That would be cruel, wouldn't it? Young people shouldn't have these responsibilities. If only the old would get it right!”

“They need you, Relena. You have charisma. You can lead them.”

I lean back on my elbows, tilt my head back, and regard him. “Sometimes I think I don't want any of it,” I say wearily. “Sometimes I wish I could forget everything and just go back to the way things were. But we were worse off then than we are now, so I guess that's very selfish of me.” It's all I can do to keep from shouting, _And I wish you didn't have to be a part of this, either! I wish we could have met the way a normal boy and girl meet and just been NORMAL and safe._ When Sally Po came back from L3-X18999 she brought with her Dekim Barton's files on Operation Meteor. I spent an entire day and night reading them and when I was finished I was so sickened that I threw up. I want to tell Heero that I know what he went through to become a Gundam pilot, the training to which he was subjected, but I don't think it would help. I think he would rather I not have found out.

He can't know what I think and yet...and yet there's a flicker of light in his eyes that has nothing to do with the fire. My heart flutters, and I hear the wind lashing the branches outside the window, hoof beats on the rooftops, the call of the Hunt. I can't help it anymore-- “Sit down,” I say. “Please. And have some bread and mulled cider. I can't finish it on my own and you look...” Oh, why do I bother? I still find it hard to believe he agreed to stay here with me, at least until he feels well enough to travel on his own again.

“Tell me about your ideas.”

I sigh, struggle to sit up, and to hide my hurt. But then, what did I expect? Milliardo told me a long time ago that there's a way of summoning the Hunt to make it come when called and do one's bidding. I've never known how to do it, and looking at Heero now I realize that I never want to learn. Things happen when it's their time, and it is not our time yet. How can it be when I still belong to a world into which it would be cruel to drag him, and when he still drifts through the days like the last leaf of autumn?

So I pick up my notes, put them in order, and read my ideas to him, while he stands by the fireplace and watches me like Poe's raven, reminding me of all the things I want to put in their graves. When I've finished reading he nods briefly, says, “That sounds good, but remember people are slow to change,” and walks to the door. I watch him leave and I don't say anything.

I'm still staring at the open doorway when Duo enters. “Yo, m'lady!” It's his customary greeting, and it warms me from my cheeks to the tips of my toes. I had not realized until that moment, how cold I was.

I shake myself out of my trance. “Duo!” I really like Duo. I'd only met him twice before--at St. Gabriel when I was a student there, and then a few months later on MO-II where the Eve War survivors gathered--and we hadn't done much talking then, but this time around we just sort of gravitated toward each other. I think it's because we're both very concerned about Heero and because we both need people with whom we can talk. I feel very comfortable with him, which is ironic, since he reminds me of all the brash, exciting public schooled boys I'd always felt too shy to approach. He's been a good friend to me these past four days. He's made me laugh when I've needed it and advised me from a soldier's perspective when I've asked it of him. He's been the brother I wish I'd had.

“Just passed His Ghostliness in the hall, and I'm guessing from the look on your face he was just here. Ooh, cider.” He stoops and picks up the pitcher, hesitates before taking my cup. I point to my dresser, where a second, clean mug sits. “So how's he doing?” he asks as he pours for himself and then refills my cup.

“He didn't say much.”

Duo blinks. “So what else is new?”

I smile and sip my cider. It's been sitting by the fire so it's still warm. The aroma of cinnamon and cloves fills my lungs and nostrils. It's a safe scent, one very far removed from the storm, from all things wild and dangerous. “I wish there was something I could do for him, something I could say.”

Duo sprawls on the floor beside me, leans close as no boy I've ever known previously has done. He smells nice; he must have taken a bath after coming in from the cold. Unlike Heero, who doesn‘t seem to care what happens to himself. “He knows you want something from him. All his life people have wanted him for something. He needs a break from all that. A long one. Even though, seriously, you're probably the best thing that's ever happened to him.”

“In truth all I want is for him to be happy.”

“Happy? Heero?”

I sigh, cradle my cup between my hands.

“You're doing everything right, Relena,” he tells me, and gives my shoulder a squeeze. “We're all screwed up, but I think he's the worst off. Wufei might be a close second. Very close, if he's all into Dorothy Catalonia. I caught him ogling her in the gym right before me and Heero left for the com tower. Eh, sorry,” he adds, looking somewhat contrite. “I know you two are sort of friends. I just can't make myself like her.”

“She's changed a lot since the war.”

“Yeah, well, she still hurt two of the people I care about.”

He glances over his shoulder at the flames and I can't see his face. He must be thinking about his friend Hilde Schbeiker, a girl I only met once, but admire greatly. I know they lived together on one of the L2 colonies during and after the war. He acts as though they did not part on good terms, but he won't tell me exactly what happened. And I don't pry because I barely know him.

“Sucks about Epyon,” he says after a while.

“Yes, it does.”

“Sucks through a straw. Trust Zechs to potentially mess things up _again_. Eh, sorry,” he says again, “can't seem to stop sticking my feet in my mouth tonight. I know he's your brother and all... I swear, lady, you keep company with the oddest people: Dorothy, Zechs, Heero. Me.” He grins. “So, what are you going to do?”

“I've informed Lady Une that my brother has no idea what happened to Epyon at the end of the Eve War. He says he flew it as far as he could, lost consciousness, and was picked up by Sweepers. He was badly injured in the battle and was unconscious for a long time.” It's hard to picture my brother in a hospital bed. It pains me to think of him thus, despite all our disagreements. “He woke on MO-IV with no memory of his rescue. He spent most of the past year trying to find it, hunting for his demons, as it were. But he didn't find it. He would continue to look for it, but Noin and I think it would be better if he laid his ghosts to rest in other ways. So the suit could be anywhere. I just hope whoever found it has the sense to destroy it.”

“I have some pull with the Sweepers, still. I'll contact my, er, contacts, and see if they know anything. Howard's somewhere in the Pacific enjoying retirement, but I'll see if I can find him, too. He may talk like a pot-head, but he built the Tallgeese and he has his ear to the ground.”

“Thank you, Duo.”

“No sweat. Hey,” he grins as he elbows me playfully, “us Gundam pilots went through a _lot_ to get you civilians this far. We're not going to let it fall apart that easily. And you know, if the weather clears, by this time tomorrow the Gundams will be destroyed. Once people see that maybe they'll realize the fighting's really over and cough up Epyon. I mean, if they haven't broken it into scrap metal already. One can only hope.” He downs the rest of his cider, wipes his mouth with the back of his hand. “Thank you for everything you've done for him, by the way. Heero, I mean.” He says this in a low voice, as though he's afraid someone will hear him. “For whatever reason, he's my friend. He's kind of been an inspiration to us all and I hate seeing him like this.”

“He needs a new mission,” I say. “I don't think he understands that just living can be a mission in itself.”

Very quietly, so quietly I almost miss it, Duo says, “I think I know something that might help.”

I stare at him. When he does not explain I say, “What?” He says nothing. “Duo, you must tell me. What can help him?”

He opens his mouth slightly as though he's about to speak, but he closes it again quickly, and shakes his head. For a second I think he's teasing me, but then I see that there is no merriment in his eyes. He looks frightened.

“What?” I whisper.

But he shakes his head; the end of his braid sweeps the carpet, scatters my papers. He realizes what he's doing and ducks his head sheepishly. “Oops. I messed up your files. Guess if we're back at war tomorrow it'll be my fault.” He pushes the papers back into a messy pile, then climbs to his feet. “I'd better go. I'm zonked. Being cold tires you out because your body burns lots of calories to stay warm. Hmm. Consequently, I'm hungry, too.” He yawns and stretches. “Gonna go find something to eat, and then I'm going to bed. ‘Night, Princess.”

“Good night, Duo.”

He closes the door behind him as he leaves, and right away I feel locked in, as though this room is too small to hold everything I'm feeling.

I abandon my notes and files and go to the window. It's still snowing hard. I climb onto an overstuffed armchair, lean forward with my arms folded on the windowsill, and watch the storm. _Even the Wild Hunt shouldn't be out on a night like this_ , I think. I rest my head on my arms and try to remember other winters from long ago. I concentrate very hard. I _must_ remember.

_I wake suddenly out of a deep sleep. It is not morning. I don't know why I am awake now. I feel a tingle of excitement in my belly, but it is still two days before Christmas. I am still wondering about this when my brother bursts into my room. I start from my bed in surprise. I almost cry out, but he holds a finger to his lips: be quiet. “Come with me, Relena,” he says. “Get your shoes and coat and come with me. Quickly!” I know that this is not a game. I pull on my coat, but I can't find my boots. “Hurry!” says Milliardo. I'm frightened. I start to cry. My brother grabs my slippers from the floor by my bed, sits me on the bed, and puts them on me himself. Then, “Come on,” he says, takes my hand, and leads me to the door. He stops suddenly. Listens. Then, “Get back!” and shoves me behind him. I hit the wall, hard. I'm so frightened I can't cry. I know there is someone at the door and I know that whoever it is means to do me harm. There is a gun in my brother's hand. A gun in my nine-year-old brother's hand._

I don't remember what happened after that. The door opened, there was fighting, the details run away from me. That was the night my parents died, though, and the first time my brother killed another human being. My head hurts from concentrating so hard, or maybe it's the memory that pains me. Probably it is both. When was innocence first lost? Not my innocence, but the innocence of humankind? I went to a Catholic school until I was fifteen years old but I can't look to the things I learned there for my answer. The Bible can't tell me why a nine-year-old should be forced to become a murderer to save the life of his younger sister or why another boy just as young should be molded and bent by torture into a creature that does not know how to exist in a peaceful world.

I wish I could go back to a time when people were still unjaded toward violence. I want to find its source and stop it before anything like what we've just lived through can happen for the first time. I want to be stronger than I feel. I want answers. I want to save us all but I don't know how.

 

**QUATRE RABERBA WINNER**

This is what I remember:

I don't know where I am. I don't know who I am, and that's just fine. I am floating, it's dark all around me, I can't see, but that's fine, too. I don't know why, just that it is. A breeze caresses my forehead. I lean into it, hungry for its gentleness.

Out of nowhere a voice starts to sing, softly, brokenly. I know the tune, and the words are vaguely familiar. The song is Arabic, the language of my ancestors, and it is a lullaby. Suddenly things are not fine and I want to cry because I can almost recall the tune but I have no recollection of anyone ever singing me a lullaby before.

* * * *

I don't think I did cry. If I had, I'm pretty sure it would have woken me and then the person who was singing would not have broken off his song and whispered, “Please be all right, Quatre. You are the bravest and most noble of all. Please. I couldn't bear losing you, too.”

The person singing was my father, and it was his hand caressing me. It must have been, although I could never quite believe it. I still can't. He never showed much tenderness toward me. But who else could it have been? Anyway, I was thirteen years old when that happened. I was in a hospital on Resource Satellite MO-III recovering from the gunshot wound I'd received protecting Rashid Kurama from the traitor Yuda. The wound had not been severe at first; the bullet had only grazed my ribs. But in the subsequent mobile suit battle I'd been jostled around quite a lot and managed to lose a lot of blood. I fainted almost immediately after the battle and had to be brought in by the satellite crew.

Now when I try to envision this scene it's Rashid sitting beside my hospital bed, as he did two years later when I was on MO-II recovering from the stab wound Dorothy Catalonia gave me. It takes a lot of effort to turn Rashid's face back into my father's.

Sometimes I wish I'd come awake fully and caught my father singing. Then maybe he'd have to have told me he loved me. Other times I'm glad I stayed asleep; he might not have said anything.

I still don't know who he was talking about when he said he couldn't bear to lose me too. Maybe I misheard.

 

I can't get used to the cold. I mean I can't get used to this _kind_ of cold. I'm from a desert colony and deserts get quite cold at night. I'm not used to the damp, to the kind of cold that seems to drip into your bones and fill your joints. I'm looking forward to leaving this city and I know the Maguanacs are looking forward to it, too. There's no reason for me to stay now that Sandrock is gone. Well, no reason that I can speak about to anyone.

I wonder what he's doing right now. He seemed all right after he, Duo, and I destroyed our Gundams yesterday, but then, so did Duo and this morning he told me he slept poorly because he kept having nightmares about Deathscythe. I had strange dreams about Sandrock last night, not nightmares exactly. Trowa has not said anything about Heavyarms. I hope he's all right.

It's so cold! I have my heater on as high as it will go, but it won't drive out the damp. This is an old hotel; its heading system is not an par with what I'm used to. I huddle in bed under the blankets, my knees drawn up to my chest, my gloved hands held tight between my legs. I wish I had my scarf, but I gave it to Trowa when we went out for lunch four days ago.

I can't believe my boldness that day. I almost touched his hand in the café, and I _did_ grab his hand and told him I thought I cared for him that night in the park while we were building a snowman. I said I _thought_ I cared for him, but that was because I was too chicken to say what I meant, which is that I _do_ care for him, I know I do, I think I always have.

We were friends during the war. Or at least, I thought we were. But I'd never had friends my own age before so I'd had no idea how friends were supposed to feel about each other. I knew what I felt for Trowa was different from what I felt for Duo, but I did not understand _how_ different. It wasn't until I started seeing Monalee Soonjat after that hospital opening back in April. She was a wonderful person: kind, funny, clever, and very pretty. I should have fallen for her. Any straight boy would have. But after spending some time with her I realized that what I _should_ feel for her, I already felt for Trowa.

I hadn't seen Trowa since January when I went to his circus to talk with him about destroying the Gundams. I was busy organizing the destruction of the Gundams and he was touring with his troupe. When I finally saw him again after the battle with Marie Maia's men, when he jumped out of Heavyarms' cockpit and landed gracefully on the snow the attraction I felt was so profound I almost fell headlong out of my own Gundam.

Thinking about Trowa warms me slightly. I wish he were here now. What would it be like to snuggle together under this blanket? The bed is narrow so we would have to lie quite close. How would it feel to have his arms around me? He cupped my face when we were in the park, smiled down at me. I felt like a candle flame, and he was breathing me brighter. He called me _normal_.

I touch my hands to my cheeks. It's not the same. I pull off my gloves, toss them aside, touch my face again, and try to pretend my hands are Trowa's.

It's not the same, but it's arousing, especially when I picture him beside me in bed, naked, his hot skin brushing mine, his breath stirring my hair.

I've never been that close, physically, to another human being, and yet I can picture it so vividly. A second later lying prone is too uncomfortable. I push back the blanket and climb to my knees. I unbutton my pajama top and let it slip down my back. I'm hot now, with desire--and shame. I close my eyes and run my hands over my chest and belly. _His hands_ , I think, despising myself. I touch my nipples and bite my lip to stifle a groan. I slip one hand into my pants and touch the hot hardness between my legs. I've never done this before. I learned about sex from my sisters' biology textbooks and medical manuals. I don't know if I'm doing it right, but it doesn't take me long to figure out what feels good, what hurts, and eventually I'm lying on my back gasping and shaking and my hand and the front of my pajama pants are sticky.

I lie there in the darkness, half-naked, breathing hard. It occurs to me that I'll have to wash the blanket and my pajamas myself and I feel very stupid. And ashamed. Not of what I've just done, but of the reason behind it.

I used Trowa to warm myself and I've been using him, for more than a year now, for my absolution.

Oh, my feelings for him are real. Fireworks go off in my heart when he smiles at me. I care about him more than I've ever cared about anyone. But at the back of every smile I give him, of every touch, is the thought that if I can be with him, if I can make him love me, then I'll finally be able to stop regretting my relationship with my father and I'll be forgiven for the terrible thing I did during the war.

Needless to say I don't sleep well. When I wake very early the next morning I'm still tired and troubled by fragmented dreams involving my father, my sisters, Wing Zero, Sandrock, and Trowa.

I get out of bed and go to the bathroom to brush my teeth and shower. I should have done this after I ejaculated last night; now I feel really dirty. After the shower I dry myself quickly and dress in the corduroy pants and scratchy woolen sweater the Maguanacs gave me when they landed here shortly after the battle. I dry my hair, stare at my face in the bathroom mirror, try to find something worth liking. It's useless, so I give up, gather up my pajamas and the stained blanket, stuff them in the garment bag I find in my closet and go out in search of a laundromat.

There are some people out on the street even at this early hour and they point me in the right direction. One of them offers to show me the way. I shrug, then remember my manners, and accept her kind offer.

“I think I've seen you before,” she says as we plod through the snowy streets. “You came with the protestors, right?”

I just nod.

We arrive at the laundromat, only to find it closed until eight o'clock. “Oops,” says the woman, grinning sheepishly. “Guess you have an hour to wait. Hey, I know where we can get some good coffee and donuts. You up for it?” I look at her. She's a little older than I am, attractive, and her smile is friendly. Still, there's something suspicious about her. I can't say what it is. Maybe it's me, and not her. It could well be; my father had been determined to keep me and my sisters out of the public eye, so I didn't have much contact with non-family members growing up.

“Come on,” she says. “My treat. You look like you could use a pick-me-up.”

I'm still a little uncomfortable with the idea, but I say yes. I can't think of a good reason not to, and I have an hour to kill.

The coffee shop is a few blocks west. It's small, but clean. The atmosphere seems very relaxed. There are at least half a dozen people there sipping coffee, eating donuts, reading newspapers.

The young woman orders coffee for us while I select a table far from the window. I'm busy squashing my laundry into as small a ball as I can when she returns, two steaming cups in her hands. “Hazelnut cinnamon,” she says as she sits opposite me. “Best there is.”

I sip my coffee slowly.

“So,” the young woman says, “you came here with the protestors. Where are you from?”

I freeze, mid-sip. The liquid begins to burn my mouth so I swallow quickly and say, “The Colonies.”

“You came _all_ the way from the Colonies to protest Marie Maia? Did your parents come with you?”

“My parents--” it's hard to make myself pluralize the word! “--are dead. I came by myself.”

She rests her chin on her hand and studies me for a moment. I begin to feel a little more uncomfortable. “Look,” she says finally, “I'm going to go for broke and say I think you're one of the Gundam pilots. Am I right?” I don't know what to say. I study my coffee. “I am right. I know it. Do you mind if I ask you a few questions? You boys are an inspiration to everyone on Earth and the Colonies and the people want to know--” I grip my Styrofoam cup so hard that I crush it. The coffee spills onto my hand and wrist, burning my skin.

“Oh my!” The young reporter--that must be what she is--grabs a handful of napkins from the dispenser and presses them against my hand. “Wait here, I'll get some ice. Don't go anywhere,” she admonishes with a wink and a waggle of her index finger.

“Actually,” says a soft voice behind her, “he was just leaving.”

It's Trowa. My first instinct is to shrink against the wall and cover the shameful bundle at my side.

But he pushes past the reporter as though she's just a garment hanging in a closet, and holds out his hand to me. “Come on, Quatre,” he says. “Let's get out of here. I'll take care of your hand.”

I let him pull me away from the table, away from the reporter who just stands there gaping, and out of the coffee shop. Once we're outside he bends and scoops up some snow and rubs it over my burned skin.

“It doesn't look so bad. Does it still hurt?”

He's holding my hand, running his wet fingers over it. When the snow runs out he scoops up more and rubs it over my hand again.

“It's fine,” I whisper. All I can think is, _Oh, right. This is what your hands feel like._ And, _I jerked off last night, pretending my hands were yours. I used you._

“Quatre, are you all right? Why are you up so early? What's that?”

“Just some laundry,” I mutter. “I--spilled something.”

His eyebrows quirk slightly. God, he has such perfect eyebrows. “You can have that done at the hotel, you know. Just leave it on your bed.”

I could say I didn't know, but what comes out is, “I wanted to do it myself.” I look up at him, flushing deeply.

To my surprise, he laughs. He doesn't laugh nearly enough, and I love the way it sounds. It's strange; he has such an impassive façade he sometimes seems emotionless, but when he laughs he throws his whole body into it, tossing his head back, opening his mouth wide, even though the laughter is quite soft. “Oh, Quatre, you're so amazing. Only you...”

“Only me _what?_ ” I bristle. But I'm beginning to feel better. To distract him, I say, “So why are _you_ up so early?”

“I wanted a fresh donut. They run out of Boston cream pretty quickly.”

It's my turn to stare. “That's so--so--”

“What?”

“NORMAL,” I splutter. “Don't laugh,” I plead when he starts again. “Just five days ago you couldn't order tea and now you're being picky about donuts?”

“I have priorities.”

I have to smile at that. “Am I one?” I can't believe I'm bold enough to ask.

He stops laughing and looks at me somberly. “Yes, Quatre, you are.”

I want more than he's given me thus far, but I'm afraid to ask for too much. It was okay when I could pretend innocence, but now he knows I care. If I stumble and crash into him he'll know it's because I want to know what his body feels like when I grab him for support. So I don't do anything.

He steps forward and wraps his arms around me.

I bury my face against his chest, curl my fingers around the collar of his coat--the one I bought for him because he hadn't brought any.

“Quatre.” He touches my hair. So that's how it feels. Shivers lace up and down my spine. “Is this all right?” he whispers, stroking. “Are we this far, yet? Can I do this?”

Yes, yes, we're here. But it's not right for you to care when you should hate me for what I did to you. But I can't wish for anything but this. I try, but I can't.

Oh, Trowa, I'll make it up to you somehow. I'll become the person you should love, I'll fix things. I already have an idea.

 

**DOROTHY CATALONIA**

This is what I remember:

I am twelve years old and I am in Barcelona. It is a glorious November day. The sky is as bright as polished blue topaz, and seems just as shiny. The leaves that flutter down from the trees are cinnamon and caramel and the sun is so bright it renders the whitewashed walls painful to look at. I am on vacation from school and skipping happily between the two men I love best, my papa, and my cousin, Treize.

Papa is General Joseph Catalonia, the former commander of OZ. He retired almost a year ago and came home to his family's ancestral manor because, he says, he is tired of war and will work for peace all the days that remain to him. I am too young to understand fully what he means. All I care is that he is home and I no longer have to live with my grandfather, the Duke.

I have had so much fun since vacation started! Almost every day Papa has taken me out into the city to show me around. I have not been here since I was very young, so some things are half-familiar, but everything is exciting and wonderful. We go to the theatre. We go to museums. We go for tea in Arabic teahouses, where we sit at low tables in shadowy, flower-and-oil-scented rooms and sip violet tea in small gilt-trimmed glasses and eat sesame seed cakes, and talk. He tells me what he wants to do now that he is retired. _We'll travel all over the world, Ruby_ , he promises, his blue eyes twinkling. He calls me Ruby because the people here always call me _rubia_ \--blonde. He listens while I chatter about school. I am in Heaven.

Two days ago, Cousin Treize flew down from Austria and joined us here. I like him a lot and am glad he is here, although since his arrival Papa has been acting a little distracted. I think he is worried about something. I ask Cousin Treize, but he won't say what it is.

But you know, it's hard to think about that on such a beautiful day, even though Papa and Cousin Treize are talking about battle and Earth's unstable relationship with the Colonies. I pretend to be mesmerized by the sights around me, but I listen.

“What do you know, Treize? You're only twenty-one, less than half my age. I'm not surprised by your opinions, but I think that in time you'll see things the way I do now. Violence only begets more violence. I began to understand that after the slaughter of the Peacecrafts. I knew the king and his family. Our daughters played together when they were five.”

I have the vaguest recollection of a little girl with light brown hair and big, insipid tear-filled blue eyes and me standing over her, a decapitated doll in my hands, explaining that we were playing French Revolution and if she had not wanted this to happen she should not have whined about being the queen.

The memory does not interest me. I sweep it aside and listen to Cousin Treize's response:

“Yes, _that_ was a travesty. O'Neill was and still is a monumental idiot, and cruel besides. What he did was not war; it was murder plain and simple.”

“War is never plain and simple, Nephew,” my Papa admonishes gently. He is so smart! “You'll find as you grow older, _if_ you manage to grow older, that the line between murder and the kind of killing soldiers do is very hard to determine at times.”

“Nevertheless there _is_ a line. O'Neill crossed it. I do not intend to.”

“No? Then how do you explain the Alliance's decision regarding Colony A0206?”

Cousin Treize clenches his fist. He tries to hide it in his jacket pocket, but I see. “You were not supposed to have heard of that, Uncle. I hope Septem does not know that you know. Anyway, Colony A0206 is decrepit. The problems with its systems are too myriad to fix. Our spy reports show that Dekim Barton of L3-X18999 has taken a keen interest in that colony. It could be used as a weapon against the Earth. Long Zi-ling has been appraised of the situation, and refuses to move the people.”

“And why should they move?” Papa does not sound very impressed with Cousin Treize's arguments. He sifts through a pile of charm bracelets, holding each one up for my inspection as he replies. “After China fell to the Alliance and was divided by its generals many of the Chinese people were forced off their land and became nomadic. Long Bao and several other clan leaders pooled what wealth remained to them and purchased land on L5-A0206. They were cheated of course; the ones who sold the colony knew of its potential instability and said nothing. Still, the colony belonged to them. They've been there for more than a century. Why should they leave their homes a second time? They refuse, so they must be slaughtered. There's a word for that: genocide. Is that beautiful, Nephew?”

“No!” How angry he sounds! “That's not beautiful. If there were some other option I would take it, but there is none. However, war _can_ be beautiful when it is done correctly. It is a test of skill and brings out best in men.”

“It brings out the worst. If all you wanted was a test of skill, why not challenge your so-called enemies to a soccer game?” Papa laughs, picks up a pretty leather wallet with a grinning cat sewed onto it and shows it to me. “This one, Ruby?” He's trying to distract me and I pretend to be distracted.

I don't hear the shots. What I hear is my Papa say, “Ruby,” again, softly, and then he falls, pulling the contents of the table down with him.

I don't say anything. I just stare down at my father, watching the red roses blossom across his white shirt. People are beginning to shout, one of them is Cousin Treize, but I hardly hear. I stare into my father's wide-open eyes that don't see, at the mouth that does not draw breath. And then I scream.

I scream like a falcon: loud, piercing, inhuman. I scream and scream and then there are arms around me trying to pull me away. I struggle wildly, flailing, kicking, biting, but I'm only a little girl, I'm not strong. Cousin Treize tears me away from my Papa and clasps me against his chest while I writhe and scream like all the winds of the world are inside me trying to get out through the tiny hole of my mouth.

As I scream I look up over Cousin Treize's shoulder and I see the gunman and he is aiming at my cousin and I don't care, I don't care. Kill me, I want to scream, but the words don't come, only pure, shrill sound. Kill me, kill me. I press my heart to my cousin's so I'll be sure to die, too.

But the gunman does not fire. He lowers his weapon and between one heartbeat and the next he disappears in the crowd that's gathering. I struggle again in my cousin's arms. I'll overtake that man, I'll make him kill me, too.

“Dorothy, don't,” pleads Cousin Treize. “Your father died as a soldier should, for the thing he believed in. You can't die until you have something to believe in, too. Stop it. Dorothy, _stop_.”

I keep struggling. I don't know when I stop or when my screams become sobs, but eventually they do. I cry for a long time, and then I vow never to cry again because no other man in this sick world can ever be worth my grief.

* * * *

I never did find out who ordered my father's murder. I think it might have been Septem, because he and Cousin Treize hated each other passionately. But I never knew for sure. That was one secret that OZ managed to keep from me. Grandfather once told me that if I wanted the name of my Papa's killer, I should look no further than Cousin Treize himself, but I never believed that and still don't. Treize was a brilliant, charismatic leader, but he was blind when it came to the true nature of men and war. Back then he still believed it was possible to win a war with his honor intact. I think Papa's death is what changed him. If he had arranged Papa's murder he'd have had it done when I was not around. He was a bad man in many respects, but he always cared for me. Yes, I know that this is true. One must understand people if one wishes to manipulate them, you see.

I did get my tears back eventually. It was Quatre Winner who found them for me after I almost killed him. I regret hurting him. Of course I do. I was blinded by grief at the time--yes, I was still grieving for my father--but that is not an excuse. If I had killed him I would have destroyed the last shred of goodness inside my heart, my last chance. I attacked him because I thought that he was just like me and because of that he should have seen things my way and helped me in my plan to teach every human being a lesson they would not forget. But he helped me in a way that I never expected; we were so alike that he understood my soul and was able to show it to me. He showed me the thing I used to be, the thing I was, and he gave me a glimpse of the thing I could become. He saved me but I hated him for a long time after that, or thought I did.

But I'm less like Quatre Winner than I am like Chang Wufei of Colony A0206. People like Quatre and Relena Peacecraft follow their hearts, and that is good. Wufei and I try to think things through carefully, often coldly, and act according to our convictions. Sometimes I think we are more sensitive, Wufei and I. We understand the evil as well as the good.

It's so strange. I thought that Quatre was like me and I hated him for it. I know that Wufei is like me and I think that I am falling in love with him.

I think at first that I should ask Wufei to take me with him when he destroys his Gundam. But on further contemplation I decide that my presence would be intrusive. He has his own ghosts to bury, and I have mine. And our ghosts clashed once. They should not be together in the end.

Besides, I don't really know how he feels about me. He did not object when I kissed him that evening. Actually, I think he liked it. I caught him checking me out more than once as we walked back to the hotel. That was the first time I'd felt remotely attractive since before my father's death. But we hadn't really seen each other much after that night. I guess we avoided each other. I was shy, oddly enough, and maybe so was he.

So instead of begging to go along I go with Lady Une and Marie Maia, who is doing well but needs to be in a wheelchair until she is stronger, to the graveyard where Cousin Treize is buried.

I promised Lucrezia Noin that I would not visit that grave again, and I do not. My father is also buried here--this is a cemetery for fallen heroes of the Earth--and I leave Une and Marie Maia to go stand by my father's grave.

I have not been here in two years. After the Eve War I was too ashamed to come. Now I am not afraid.

“I think I'm falling in love, Papa,” I whisper. “Can you believe it?” My voice gets picked up by the wind, which is rather fierce, and carried all around over the graves. I pull my headscarf closer around my face. “You'd like this boy--this young man, I should say. In some ways he is like you, but I think he is more like me. I didn't know there was anyone else like me. Now I feel less lonely.”

I'm terrified, I want to say. But I'm delighted, too. These are such new feelings I can't even find the words to express them. So instead I talk about Wufei, how handsome he is, and how smart, how strong he seemed when he caught me, how he's the first young man I've ever caught staring at my ass. I hear my words and want to laugh at how girlish I sound, how normal. How can any of this be normal? But it certainly sounds that way.

This last thing I have to say to my father before I say goodbye, this question, is not normal. “When do you think history ended, Papa? I mean, when did things stop being new and start repeating themselves? How far back would I have to look to find the answer?” All I hear in reply is the wind moving through the graves and the bare branches high above.

But then I think, I promised I would look to the future, didn't I? Maybe the answer is not to be found in the past but in the future? That being the case I should ask Wufei. Yes, I shall ask him. I shall see him again and ask him. And maybe he'll know the answer. I have hope, now, Papa. I have so much hope. And maybe if we both know the answer, we two who used to have no hope, who walked the dark path and the light, we'll be able to tell it to others, to everyone, and we can all begin again.

 

9/24/02


End file.
